by Sam Wiebe
“Tell her I’ve still got her Jeff Buckley record if she wants it back.”
“I’ll make sure to tell her that. Take care, Mike.”
The pickup peeled out in reverse, launching into traffic with a guttural roar of exhaust.
I walked back up Main to where I’d parked the Camry, wondering if Gavin Fisk was right, if I did want him to have made the wrong call so I could wave his failure in his face. Any chance I was that petty? I asked myself. Maybe a little.
Ben lived a block off East Broadway in a standalone building leased by reasonably-trustworthy Bohemians. The street-level storefront sold pottery and hand-carved African djembes. Four or five people lived on the second floor, sharing a kitchen and bathtub and toilet. “One of those old claw-footed tubs,” Ben said with obvious pride. “The kind that pop up in novels about struggling artists in Manhattan lofts.”
“Oh those kind,” I’d said.
Today he was waiting on the corner across from the Fogg’N Suds, dressed in a black raincoat and matching vest, navy slacks and a pearl-coloured shirt and red and black silk tie. Except for the vest, it was the same outfit I was wearing.
“Jesus,” I said. “Do I have time to go home and change?”
“Company uniform,” Ben said.
“Why don’t you stay home and brainstorm like you’re supposed to?”
“I was,” he said. “I had three pages of ideas this morning. I was working on a prequel game about Rosalind and Magnus before they met, showing how they were always just missing each other as they chase the same assassin. The player would alternate characters on each level. But the logistics sunk it. Too many coincidental near-misses and it becomes cute. And my audience hates cute. They want to see them tear someone’s larynx out, not narrowly avoid meeting each other like some bad Robert Altman movie.”
“I’m no expert on anything game-related,” I said, aiming the car toward Kroon & Son. Up Granville then left on Marine Drive, then right into a cluster of industrial parks. Midday traffic on Granville was slower than usual, and I saw why: up ahead, flaggers in hard hats and reflective vests were funneling traffic down to one lane.
“You were saying?”
“Sorry?” My thoughts had been on the Szabos.
“You were saying,” Ben said, “that you’re not an expert on games.”
“I’m not.”
“But?”
“But what?”
“Weren’t you getting ready to upbraid me about not working?”
I made the left. Marine Drive was no less busy, but traffic flowed more efficiently. “I don’t get why you don’t just write game three, you know? Like we were discussing the other day, how Indiana Jones is better than Star Wars ’cause at least the series moves forward. No one gives a shit about stuff that already happened.”
“That’s your entire job, isn’t it? Telling people things that already happened?”
It was a fair point. “But yours is to tell people what happens next,” I said. “So why not pick up where you left off?”
“I can’t,” Ben said, exasperated at the question. “It has to be note perfect. After three years’ hiatus, if it’s not note perfect, exactly the right blend of wisecracks and philosophy and gore —” He shrugged. “It’ll let down the fan base.”
“Hell with the fan base.”
“But I’m one of them,” he said. “We’re Legion. It’s got to be true to the original vision. If it’s not, I’ve let myself down.”
I ticked off the street addresses as we passed them, eyes out for 851. “You were seventeen when you had this quote-unquote original vision? Nineteen when game one came out?”
“Your point being?”
“You’re not a teen anymore. Few years you’ll be thirty. What people like changes. I haven’t listened to Screaming Trees since high school, and back then I didn’t know about Stax Records or Blue Note.”
“Your point being?” Teenager-sulky.
“Stop moping and come up with some new shit.”
Silence until we pulled to the curb at the end of a long line of hearses. Of course it wasn’t that easy for him. His work had ground to a halt in the years after Cynthia disappeared. Getting back to work frightened him. I didn’t understand that. In the years after leaving the job, I’d have been happy to have work to cling to as everything else crumbled. Learning the ins and outs of private investigation had consumed a lot of nights that could have been spent self-destructively. In times of grief, the work is always there. I hoped one day I could make him see that.
As we exited the car, Ben said, “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles went backwards.”
The younger Thomas Kroon ushered us into an office that was tastefully accoutered, the huge brass-rimmed desk and the wall panelling a matching walnut. The word sumptuous came to mind.
“Pop can’t make it,” Younger said. “I’ll give you a tour, introduce you as our security consultant. Then you’ll have the run of the place.”
I nodded my head at Ben. “My secretary here has never seen a decomp. You by any chance have some Vaseline?”
Younger looked at Ben. “Maybe he should avoid the back rooms,” he said.
The outer office had two facing desks and a smaller empty desk behind, and an entire wall given over to a dry-erase board covered in inscrutable shorthand.
Carrie, a cheerful woman of about forty, handed a sheaf of papers to Kroon the Younger. Together they loaded the Xerox. At the opposite desk a portly young man worked the dispatch lines. He nodded at us as we passed.
“She did have the code,” Younger said as we passed out of the offices, down a grey carpeted hallway to a wood door. Even before he opened it, the death-smell filled our nostrils. I looked over and saw Ben rock as if slapped in the face.
I dashed back down the hallway to the office. “Anyone smoke here?”
Carrie held up a pack of du Mauriers. “Down to my last three.”
I broke a smoke in half and ripped off the filter. I handed Ben the two halves and instructed him how to wedge them into his nostrils. We followed Kroon inside the back room. A decomposing body has a cloying, tangy odour. There were several in the room, on gurneys, in bags. A wide-hipped black woman sat at the embalming table reading a Walter Mosely novel while the fluids drained out of a Caucasian lady, green-skinned by now, weighing conservatively five hundred pounds.
“Meck,” Ben said.
I noted the camera above the door, its red light on. The wire ran down to a plug to the left of the basin. “Back up power source?” I asked.
“The battery is supposedly good for eight hours,” Younger said.
“Guh,” Ben said.
We toured the freezer, the storage room, the freight elevator. The crematorium was in a separate building out back. The burying ground and all-purpose chapel was a few blocks east.
“Keys to the back door?” I asked.
“Pop and Jag and Carrie and I. Though I assume anyone could duplicate them.”
“What about the elevator?”
“Locked at night.”
“Chuh,” Ben said.
“Rest room?” I asked.
“Hallway, second door on the right,” Younger said. Ben took off, sprinting.
I held out my hands apologetically, what can you do?
“Good help is hard to find,” Younger said.
Back in his office I said, “I’d like to put the building under physical surveillance. That means staying overnight. Most of these people work Monday to Friday?”
“Except Vonda, our part-time embalmer, and Kurt the dispatcher. And my father and I.”
“I’m going to disconnect the red LEDs from the camera,” I said. “I want you to tell everyone just before closing, tonight and tomorrow and the next, that the camera isn’t working and that the system will be down for the next few days. Remind them to lock up.”
“I could tell them there have been vandals in the area, which is why we’re upgrading security. I could even advise them to take all t
heir valuables home.”
“You could mention it,” I said, “but don’t overdo the theatrics. We don’t want this to look like a trap. Best to just add a few words to the bottom of a memo or post it in the break room.”
“Understood,” Younger said. “You’ll be here tonight?”
“After closing.”
“I’ll inform Pop.”
I stood up. “I’ll let myself out.”
Ben was leaning on the hood of the Camry, vest off, shirt unbuttoned, a touch of sick around his mouth.
“Can you bring the car back for seven tomorrow?” I asked him as I unlocked the trunk.
“You’re really going to stay there overnight?”
“Looks that way.”
In a nylon tech bag in the trunk I keep a laptop and a pair of battery-operated wireless cameras. I also keep an overnight bag. Depending on the situation, I sometimes bring a gun.
I opened the suitcase, pulled out enough clothes so I could fit the tech bag inside, and covered it with a toiletries kit. Ben looked like he needed some encouragement.
“You get used to it,” I said. “It’s like if you lived near a rendering plant. You stop minding after a while.”
“How long is a while?”
“It’s less of a shock every time.”
“When’d you see your first?” Ben asked.
“August, year before I graduated high school. Victim died of exsanguination, meaning he bled out from a neck wound.” Adding the inevitable, “My grandfather.”
“Oh,” Ben said. “Hey. Sorry.”
“You didn’t kill him.”
I took out the suitcase and closed the trunk. “I’ve got two hours to kill. Drop me at the Wendy’s just up the street.” Then, to lighten the mood, I added, “You know the sound maggots make when they’re gnawing on soft tissue?”
“No.”
I simulated it.
Ben doubled over and puked straight into the gutter.
Later, in the silence and darkness of the office, with the cameras up and trained to cover the perimeter of the embalming room, I sat back in the sumptuous leather chair in the Kroons’ sumptuous office and dialed the number for Aries Security and Investigations.
“May I ask who’s calling?” the office manager said.
“Bill Billings. I’m phoning on the recommendation of Constable Gavin Fisk. Would it be possible to speak to Mr. McEachern, please?”
“Just a moment, sir.”
The dominant sounds in the still evening were the hum of the freezer in the adjacent room and the whir of the laptop’s hard drive. No movement in the embalming room.
“Roy McEachern speaking. Mr. Billings, is it? What can I do for you?”
I said, “You could have the courtesy to return a fucking phone call.”
“Is that Michael Drayton?” McEachern laughed, staccato bursts that taxed the phone’s speaker. “Well, Mike, you got through. I have to hand it to you.”
“You blocked my caller ID?”
“We had several offensive crank calls from that number.”
“What a pity. That robot who answers your phone must be quite distressed.”
“We could go back and forth all night,” McEachern said. “My time’s too valuable, I don’t know about yours.”
“I’ve inherited an ex-client of yours named Cliff Szabo.”
More of McEachern’s easy laughter. “Mike Drayton and Cliff Szabo — a match made in heaven right there. Did he try to pay you with ten percent of his business?”
Ignoring him I said, “He was your client from April till August.”
“Off and on, depending on when he felt like paying us. When he laid that ten percent scheme on me I told him I’d love to work for free, pal. Just convince my ex-wife and two kids in college. All seriousness, Mike, don’t allow a client to gyp you out of dough just because he’s got a sad story. Sad stories are free.”
“I’d like an overview of what Aries did for Mr. Szabo. Who you interviewed, what information you gathered.”
“All in the report we prepared for him.”
“Which he left in your office.”
“After tossing it at me.”
“He was distraught.”
“Sure,” McEachern said, “but not about his poor little kid, about paying us the nine grand he owed us.”
“He’d like his copy of the report.”
“That ship has sailed.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“You I like even less than him,” McEachern said. “Only reason I haven’t told you to go fuck yourself yet is on account of your grandfather. Tell you what, though. Szabo comes up with the nine he still owes us, I’ll c.c. you all the copies you want.”
“Any media coverage he gets he’ll be speaking about the investigation,” I said. “You want me to recommend he tells the CBC that you took his money and were no help to him?”
“You really think you’d come out ahead in a PR war, Mike?”
I took a breath through my nostrils and held it until I could pick out the Pine Sol and the death-smell and the lingering aftershave of Thomas Kroon the Younger.
I said, “How about for a few minutes you not be a prick and email me the report so we can maybe find this kid?”
“Fuck yourself, Mike.”
Click.
IV
Enola Curious
The next morning I gave myself a whore’s bath in the cramped washroom of my office. I plugged in the plastic kettle and traded my suit for black jeans and a blue flannel shirt, loose-fitting and faded: the two best qualities in a garment. I made a pot of Earl Grey and stood out on the narrow wooden balcony watching the clouds douse Beckett Street and listening to Blind Willie Johnson.
The night had been uneventful. The elder Kroon had opened up around six. When I told him nothing had been disturbed, he said, “Maybe we’re done with all this awfulness.”
Ben had only been half an hour late and I was back at the office by 7:15. I could’ve gone home, walked my dog, taken my grandmother out for a scone. I could’ve gone to sleep. But I felt like doing exactly what I was doing, which was, or amounted to, nothing.
The buzzer buzzed. On the monitor Cliff Szabo climbed the stairs carrying a milk crate full of papers. I held the door for him, directed him to put the crate on the table.
“Here’s everything,” he said.
It didn’t amount to much. A comprehensive missing persons report with dental charts and a description of the boy’s clothing, the full report of the brown Ford Taurus with VIN and license number, an inventory of the car’s contents, including a photo of the repainted Schwinn Stingray. Szabo had also collected press clippings and copies of the flyers. I moved the Loeb file onto Katherine’s chair so I could spread the Szabo clippings out.
“You taught Django how to drive?” I asked him.
“I let him drive around parking lots.” He drank from a bottle of water he’d brought with him. “People are so stupid when they drive, he should start now so he doesn’t become like them.”
“Fisk seems to think he took off in the car.”
“Where would he go?”
“No idea,” I said. “Is he close to any of your relatives?”
“His mother died when he was two from an embolism.” His pronunciation slowed around the last word. “Her parents are dead. My sister lives with us. When you want to talk to her she’s there.”
We drank our beverages. The office was cool, owing to the fact that I’d left the balcony door open a crack. A car with an overdriven subwoofer passed by, hip hop trickling down toward Cordova. Saturday, September 5th. Almost seven months from the date of disappearance.
“I spoke to Fisk and I spoke to McEachern,” I said, hitting print and standing to wait for the pages to land in the LaserJet’s tray. “So far all I’ve heard is a bunch of bullshit. Which means we’re starting at square one.”
Szabo’s expression didn’t change.
“I’m going to re-interview everyone, star
ting with the people who saw Django that Friday. Then everyone who knew him from school. Then your neighbours. Losing McEachern’s files isn’t setting us back all that much, because I’d do this anyway.”
“Good,” Szabo said.
“We’ll make up new flyers and get them posted around the city, and if we can afford it, take out some ads. There are online groups dedicated to getting information out. Pastor Flaherty might be able to help us finagle some press coverage.”
He nodded, following me.
“I’ll also contact all the police agencies in B.C., Alberta, and Washington State, have them check any unidentified remains against the description. If you have anything with your son’s DNA —”
“The sergeant took some things of his.” Same level expression.
“If you’ve got others, keep them handy, though your own DNA will do in a pinch.”
I handed him the two pages, listing the addresses of the shops he and Django visited and the day’s itinerary up to the hour of disappearance.
“Can you think of any place you went that’s not on this list?”
Szabo unfolded a pair of flimsy reading specs and went over it. “Seems to be it.”
“If you think of anywhere else,” I said.
“I’ll tell you.”
“Good. Let’s meet every Friday for the next month or so. Anything else you think of you write down, no matter how trivial.”
“I will.”
“Last thing: Fisk said you overturned a table during your interview.”
“I was upset,” he said. “Like I told you, some —”
“— times you overreact, got it. Not anymore. From here on out you are the model of restraint. We can’t afford offending anyone else. What’s more, I need you to apologize to Fisk. I know that sucks, but we need him to pity you.”
“I don’t want anyone’s pity.”
“It’s not for you. Apologize, kiss his ass, get him to work with us.”
“All right,” he said. “I suppose I should do the same with Mr. McEachern?”
“No, fuck him,” I said, then checked myself. “No, you’re right, it would help to be on good terms with him, too.”